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The folks at Bungie share the news, via their weekly update, that Halo 3 will be coming out this fall. Not surprising, but still good to hear. The game's marketing campaign will soon be kicking into gear, and the site offers the first 'iconic' image they'll be using on billboards and bus stops. The update also includes a few words on the Crackdown/Beta offering (sometimes later this spring), and an update on where they are with Halo itself.

I don't do XBox360, but I'm excited that they've pinned down a release date. Now all the release dates I'm waiting on (Metroid Prime 3, Mario Galaxy, Smash Brothers Brawl) might finally start hitting as other game companies plan their releases around and/or to coincide with the juggernaut Halo 3 madness. Now if only we got something more definitive than "Fall..."

Except that so far Nintendo has been total rubbish at keeping release dates unless they announce them as they approach. I'd love a solid release date from those guys as well (I'll probably get a Wii when Brawl hits shelves), but I doubt we'll get it.

Bungie was good about Halo 2 so I expect the same of Halo 3. I just hope they're giving themselves enough time to make it killer. They didn't with Halo 2.

...does Nintendo actually pay attention to other releases when they make dates? I know they like to hit xmas with stuff but other than that aren't they in their own world? Particularly with Halo, I imagine they think the demographics don't cross much, and maybe they don't, although Smash Bros is a pretty major Halo competitor in my view.

...does Nintendo actually pay attention to other releases when they make dates?

Don't think so. Why else would they release Metroid Prime 2 right next to Halo2 ? That move cost a lot of sales...

Smash Bros is a pretty major Halo competitor in my view.

Smash is great, and I think it should be out Q3 this year (prior to the Christmas period). If they want ANYTHING to go toe to toe with Halo 3 though, it should be Mario Galaxy. Or at the very least it can't be Metroid.

Honestly, as much as I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl I expect the game that will really define the Wii in 2007 is a game we do not know about and can probably not guess...If you look at the DS, Nintendo is really good at producing unexpected highly successful franchises; Brain Training, Nintendogs, The New Super Mario Bros and Animal Crossing are all games that (seemed to) came out of no where and have become remarkably large hits on the DS because the

Honestly, as much as I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl I expect the game that will really define the Wii in 2007 is a game we do not know about and can probably not guess...

Agreed. There is a lot of truth in that. I expect Mario to hold his own against Halo (just as Zelda would) and I also expect MGS4 and FFXIII to not make it this year. I think a game out of left field (like Nintendogs was) has tremendous potential to capture the sales this holiday.

I have a feeling Nintendo will be stupid and put Metroid Prime 3 out against Halo 3. Smash Bros might be able to go up against Halo 3, but not Metroid Prime 3, no way. Prime 2 didn't do nearly as well as Prime 1, and I think that can be greatly attributed to the fact that it went out up against Halo 2. With any luck, Nintendo won't do this... the downside though is that if Metroid Prime 3 doesn't come out then, we probably won't see it until 2008.

If you were actually an FPS/TPS fan, you'd either game on the 360 or on the best platform, a PC. Don't get pissy with the world because you wasted $600 on a system with no games besides the clearly mediocre Resistance.

This guy is flamebait, and flaming him is well deserved. However don't go bashing on Resistance just for him, I believe it's much better than people give it credit for, it's creative and unique take on weapons especially.

Insomniac created a solid shooter, don't go bashing them just to get this guy (or to get Sony).

If you were actually an FPS/TPS fan, you'd either game on the 360 or on the best platform, a PC. Don't get pissy with the world because you wasted $600 on a system with no games besides the clearly mediocre Resistance.

Sorry, this "PS3 has no games" bullshit is getting really, really old by now.

The current PS3 library is already better overall than that of Wii, at least for me (couldn't care less about Zelda):

Well... technically speaking you wouldn't need a "Resistance Killer" because Resistance has neither sold well enough (less than a million units) nor reviewed well enough (88% on gamerankings) to be considered the dominant game...

Not that I disagree with you about sales not being equal to quality...

Historically, when people have talked about "[Videogame] Killers" the videogame they choose is both highly popular (represented in sales) and critically acclaimed (represented in review scores); games like Halo, Grand Turismo and The Legend of Zelda are typically games where you would use as reference games... that is "Resistance is a Halo Killer", "Ico is a Zelda Killer" or "Project Gothem Racing is a Grand Turismo Killer".

Please, get it straight. It's nice to see a decent shooter for the PS3, but with it being probably the most compelling title for the PS3, it should be selling better than it is.Microsoft will probably settle in on an alternating cycle - giving shooter fans Halo 3 this holiday season, GoW 2 the next, and so on... Halo defined the Xbox and put it squarely on the map in a way that Resistance has utterly failed. There have been plenty of great shooters for the PS2 and Xbox, but how many truly **defined** a cons

I assume it wouldn't be that hard to enable both pistols on the multiplayer, as long as having an option to disable specific weapons (e.g. the sword). I remember playing Goldeneye on the N64 and that had a greater weapon variety than either Halo.

The snow map was Assault on the Control Room. Also featured a shortcut where you could skip a fair bit of the level. Actually, two shortcuts since you could get an early Banshee with some well-positioned rockets.There were some quality maps in Halo 2 as well, but it didn't come together as nicely for me. Reminds me, slightly, of how Quake 2 felt compared to the original.

Still, I played H2 through a couple of times and have had many nights spent on multiplayer with friends - absolute bargain when you conside

I wanted to hate it because the PC port was half-assed and years late.

I wanted to hate Bungie for selling out to Microsoft -- I've heard rumors that the original Halo was going to be a truly cross-platform (Windows/Mac/Linux) game before Microsoft bought it and made it Xbox only.

I wanted to hate it because FPSes are supposed to be unimaginative... I wanted to love the PS2, because it had Linux, and Final Fantasies...

I wanted to hate it so I didn't have to give another dime to Microsoft.

But you know what?

It's not just green metal. (Where do people get that, anyway? There is NO green metal through most of the games, other than the protagonist.)

It's actually a really damned good game. The graphics may be technologically dated -- it's hard to tell -- but they were amazing for the time, and the artwork is still amazing. The writing may be "uninspired", but it's not so much what they're saying, it's how they're saying it. The Halo may seem to be a cheap ripoff of Ringworld, but they made it real -- I can feel the world under my feet.

Halo was repetitive? Maybe, but it also meant it was decently long (Halo 2 was over too fast), and gave you time to get good at it. And it was fun... You know, I wanted to love Doom 3, because of the native Linux port, and id being generally cool guys and releasing their source, and all the yummy graphics, but the gameplay just isn't that fun. After you've whacked your 50th zombie on the head with a flashlight, and shotgunned your 200th Imp in the face, it's just no longer fun or even particularly hard, but no matter how many Elites I melee in the back, it never gets old -- or any easier.

And a forgettable storyline? Marathon very likely exists within the Halo universe, but I already forget its storyline, sorry...

So, tell me, what shooters are you playing that are better than the Halo games?

PC shooters.Half-Life 2; Battlefield 2; FarCry; Unreal Tournament; the whole of the slew of games that were well-designed for PCs.Halo in my eyes was simply well-designed for a console. Short of Goldeneye, nobody had ever made a really successful console shooter.

Of those that I've played: Unreal Tournament doesn't even come close. Gameplay? Might be better, that's a matter of perspective -- I prefer quality over quantity. But Halo actually had a story-driven single-player campaign -- UT just has a story tacked-on to multiplayer against bots instead of humans.Half-Life 2: Close enough that I'd call it a matter of taste. Halo restricting you to only one or two weapons carried at a time was a nice mechanic, and it's on the whole more solidly put together -- one of the